Cemex extends Rinker bid, perpetual to accept offer

Cemex extends Rinker bid, perpetual to accept offer
08 May 2007


Cemex has won over Rinker Group Ltd’s biggest shareholder in its $18bn bid for the Australian building materials maker.  
 
In a coup for the company, major Rinker shareholder  Perpetual Ltd today said it would accept an increased offer from Cemex which also extended its bid by three weeks.  
 
Cemex raised its offer by 22 per cent last month, in a second attempt to snap up its Australian peer.  
 
Today, it extended the bid to June 8 from May 18, and said it would waive a 90 per cent acceptance condition if its stake in the company surpassed 50 per cent on or before the new closing date.  
 
Perpetual, the bearer of a 10.32 per cent stake in Rinker, said it would accept the improved US$15.85 (A$19.34) a share offer made by Cemex in April.  
 
The offer values Rinker at about US$14.25 (A$17.38) billion and follows an earlier Cemex bid, rejected in October, of US$13 (A$15.86) a share.  
 
"We are pleased that Perpetual has agreed to accept the Cemex offer," Cemex chairman Lorenzo Zambrano said.  
 
Mr Zambrano said the offer now had the support of Rinker’s directors as well as the company’s biggest shareholder.  
 
"The Cemex offer for your Rinker shares now has the unanimous recommendation of the Rinker board and is now supported by Rinker’s biggest shareholder," he said.  
 
"All the Rinker directors intend to accept the revised offer for their own shares in the absence of a superior proposal."  
 
The offer is within an earlier independent expert valuation range of $US15.85 to $US17.74 per share.  
 
Shareholders will also get a final dividend of 25 cents per share, which Rinker declared in April, when it said fiscal 2008 profit could drop by around 10 per cent if the company’s main US housing market stayed depressed.  
 
If successful, the Cemex bid would be the largest takeover in Australian corporate history, barring an anticipated offer for retailer  Coles Group Ltd of close to $20 billion.  
Published under Cement News